Did newborn Earth harbour life?

sea-maid submitted, created time 14 hours 4 minutes (space.newscientist.com)

Life on Earth might have emerged about 750 million years earlier than previously thought, new research suggests.

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No place to hide for herpes virus

sea-maid submitted, created time 14 hours 13 minutes (www.newscientist.com)

They say the difference between herpes and love is that herpes lasts forever. But new research hints at a way to chase the virus from its hiding place and get rid of it for good.

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Stem cells: One more roadblock removed from the path to practical induced pluripotency

Darkfrog submitted, created time 14 hours 18 minutes (blog.wired.com)

This team from the Whitehead Institute for Biological Research has moved induced pluripotent stem cells one step closer to maturity. Using a two-pronged approach, they used a virus to insert the genes into mouse cells, but employ a drug to switch them on and off. This makes hte cells less likely to turn cancerous. The process is written up in Nature Biotechnology. Unlike previous iPS techniques, this produces a culture of genetically identical cells, something that iPS to date had not yet been able to do

3 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: stem cells stem cell research embryonic stem cells induced pluripotent stem cells gene delivery Pluripotent stem cells

Cellular Islet Autoimmunity and Islet Cell Transplantation

jerry submitted, created time 15 hours 5 minutes (www.plosone.org)

Islet cell transplantation can cure type 1 diabetes (T1D), but only a minority of recipients remains insulin–independent in the following years. They tested the hypothesis that allograft rejection and recurrent autoimmunity contribute to this progressive loss of islet allograft function.

Methodology/Principal Findings:
Twenty-one T1D patients received cultured islet cell grafts prepared from multiple donors and transplanted under anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) induction and tacrolimus plus mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) maintenance immunosuppression

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Potential Therapeutic Strategy for Type I Diabetes

Increased Mortality after Dronedarone Therapy for Severe Heart Failure

kavin submitted, created time 1 day 2 hours (content.nejm.org)

Background: Dronedarone is a novel antiarrhythmic drug with electrophysiological properties that are similar to those of amiodarone, but it does not contain iodine and thus does not cause iodine-related adverse reactions. Therefore, it may be of value in the treatment of patients with heart failure.

Methods: In a multicenter study with a double-blind design, we planned to randomly assign 1000 patients who were hospitalized with symptomatic heart failure and severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction to receive 400 mg of dronedarone twice a day or placebo

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High consumption of coffee or tea every day appears to protect male smokers against at least one type of stroke

kavin submitted, created time 1 day 2 hours (www.medscape.com)

This large, prospective, observational study showed that Finnish smokers who consumed eight or more cups of coffee per day had a 23% lowered risk for cerebral infarction, whereas those who drank two or more cups of black tea daily had a 21% lowered risk for this type of stroke vs those who drank little or none of these beverages. The associations were independent of risk factors such as a history of coronary heart disease.

Their report is published in the June 2008 issue of Stroke

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: inflammation endothelial dysfunction antioxidants tobacco smokers smoking men's health tea black tea men caffeine Coffee stroke Risk factors

Zinc-finger proteins turn T-cells HIV-resistant

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 day 15 hours (www.nature.com)

ZInc-finger proteins occur naturally in human cells and regulate gene activity. Researchers out of California's Sangamo Biosciences have figured out how to use these proteins to disrupt and disable specific genes. The kicker? When the gene in question is CCR5, human T-cells suddenly become resistant to infection with HIV.

At this point, any practical treatment would involve removing (or growing) the patient's own T-cells, treating them with zinc finger proteins, and then re0injecting the patient. Cumbersome, but possible

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: zinc finger proteins zinc-finger proteins HIV AIDS HIV treatments T-cells t cells melanoma induced pluripotent stem cells

Building the Tree of Life, Genome by Genome

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 day 15 hours (www.sciencemag.org)

Phylogenetic studies have gone 'omic. Whereas researchers used to be satisfied comparing one gene, or a few, to sort out the branching of the tree of life, the push now among those building phylogenies is to consider whole genomes--at the very least, dozens of genes and thousands of DNA bases--in establishing kinships among flora and fauna. In this way, evolutionary biology is joining the bandwagon of data-intensive studies pioneered by genomics

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An Ill Wind, Bringing Meningitis

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 day 15 hours (www.sciencemag.org)

The dust is inescapable, burning your eyes, clogging your nose, penetrating into your lungs, and making breathing ragged. In March, on the road to Koudougou, some 100 km west of Ouagadougou, the landscape is moonlike. In the cratered bottom of a lakebed, dust-caked men, barely distinguishable from their surroundings, fashion bricks from the mud. The bricks will dry quickly in the baking heat, which tops 45°C each day.

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Intermittent Tacrolimus Ointment Therapy Helps Prevent Relapse of Stabilized Atopic Dermatitis

kavin submitted, created time 2 days 1 hour (www.medscape.com)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jun 23 - In patients with stabilized atopic dermatitis, intermittent therapy with tacrolimus ointment was associated with significantly more flare-free days and longer time to first relapse compared with vehicle alone, according to a report in the June issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Tacrolimus is a topical calcineurin inhibitor (TCI) and is manufactured in ointment form under the brand name Protopic by Astellas Pharma US Inc., which supported this multicenter study by U.S. researchers

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Sudden hearing loss a harbinger of stroke

kavin submitted, created time 2 days 1 hour (mobile.reuters.com)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A sudden loss of hearing can be an early warning of impending stroke, according to results of a study released Thursday.

Dr. Herng-Ching Lin and colleagues at Taipei Medical University identified 1423 adult patients hospitalized in 1998 with a first episode of sudden hearing loss and matched each "case" patient to four "control" patients.

Patients in the hearing loss group were significantly more likely to have hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes, and elevated cholesterol levels, the investigators note

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Five Factors Predict Success in Gastric Banding Procedure

kavin submitted, created time 2 days 1 hour (www.medscape.com)

June 19, 2008 (Washington, DC) — A nationwide survey in France has found five factors that are significantly associated with successful weight loss after gastric banding. The study was part of a survey of medical and surgical practices conducted by the French National Medical Insurance Service and presented here at the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery 25th Annual Meeting. "Success" was defined as the loss of more than 50% of excess body weight.

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Abbe Limit under attack.

Cosmo submitted, created time 2 days 6 hours (www.kscitech.com)

For over a century, the Abbe Limit was considered to be a physical law. It's clear now that the ultimate resolution of a basic light microscope was never defined by the Abbe Limit and that the true resolution limit of a basic light microscope is far greater than what Abbe claimed. Why won't manufacturers produce microscopes that offer the full resolution capabilities?

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Mars OK for Life, So Far

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 days 19 hours (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

The first chemical lab results beamed back from the Phoenix lander in the deathly cold martian arctic show that life could get along just fine there, given a bit of liquid water. But there's still no evidence that organisms could have populated the area in the past.

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